Nonfiction Up, Fiction Down over Holidays

God blessed 'America' in 2004

by Staff -- Publishers Weekly, 1/3/2005

The bestselling book of the 2004 holiday season was Jon Stewart's America (The Book), and it helped record the best nonfiction holiday sales tally in the past five years. America's sales, however, did not break the holiday record, set in 1999, by Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie. That book sold more than 615,000 copies in the final five weeks of 1999 at the three national chains—Barnes & Noble, Borders and Waldenbooks; Stewart's book sold more that 433,400 copies in 2004 for the same time frame and same chains.

Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven was the bestselling fiction hardcover in the 2004 holiday season, but its 2003 total was even stronger—more than 537,500 in 2003 vs. about 442,800 in 2004. In fact, for the second year in a row, Albom's book and Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code were the top fiction holiday sellers; in 2003, sales for Brown's book were also much higher than in 2004. No new fiction bestseller racked up sales that could compete with the winning duo.

With no new books flying out of stores, it's no surprise that the 2004 holiday sales for the top five fiction titles couldn't match 2003; sales fell 21% for the bestselling fiction books in 2004, to 1.3 million units. Holiday cheer could be found in the nonfiction holiday tally, however. Total unit sales for the 2004 holiday season for the top five nonfiction books at the three chains totaled 1.1 million, a gain of 52%.

Amazon's top-selling fiction and nonfiction titles during the holidays matched those at B&N and Borders: America took the honors in nonfiction, while Heaven was the top fiction seller. The e-tailer also pointed to strong sales of Bob Dylan's Chronicles Vol. 1.